70+ Keyword Research Tool Alternatives to Google Keyword Planner

Update #2: I’ve updated this post for 2015. The original post contained around 60 keyword tools and ideas, but the updated post now contains over 90. Feel free to suggest any tools that I missed in the comments below.

I started doing SEO around 2005 or so and back then, it was pretty easy. Yahoo site explorer was an awesome backlink tool and provided a ton of backlink data. Google keyword tool was the top keyword research tool because it provided data straight from Google.

Things have definitely changed a lot since then. Yahoo site explorer is long gone and now Google has made moves to hide keyword data. Many keywords are no longer showing in Google Analytics and many people have complained that Google keyword planner shows very little if any long tail keyword data.

I don’t think that Google will ever conceal all keyword data. They will most likely always display high volume keywords so that Adwords advertisers will be able to target them. After all, Google generates most of its revenue from ads.

So the good news is that we still have access to high traffic money keywords. However, long tail keyword data is still important for a few reasons including the following:

1. It gives you an idea of what people are interested in and provides good content ideas.

2. Seeing patterns in keyword phrases and being able to target them can help SEO’s get even more search engine traffic

3. Long tail keywords bring in 70% or more of search engine traffic to websites, even for sites that are ranking for their main competitive keywords

Although Google Keyword Planner is still useful, SEO’s now have to turn to other sources to get more ideas for keywords. Here are a few ideas on where to get keywords ideas outside of Google’s Keyword Planner and Analytics:

Google Tools (1-4)

Google Keyword Planner was made for Adwords users, but is the most popular Google tool for keyword research. However, here are some more Google tools that can be helpful.

1. Google Webmaster Toolshttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
Google Webmaster Tools is currently the most accurate way to see what keywords people are using to land on your website. The data is only available for 90 days, so be sure to back it up every few months or so.

Since Google defaults to encrypted search now, Analytics does not show much of the data. With Google Webmaster Tools, however, you can view these encrypted searches.

3. Google Correlatehttp://www.google.com/trends/correlate
With Google Correlate, you can find keywords that exhibit similar trend patterns to the phrase you type in. A good way to find possible related search terms, although sometimes the terms shown are not related.

Other Search Engines (5-7)

1. Bing Keyword toolhttp://www.bing.com/toolbox/keywords
I know that Bing and Yahoo search are used significantly less than Google, but Bing keyword tool can still provide a few ideas for keywords and it is free to use. Yahoo and Bing do still get significant search volume (25-29% of search volume according to Comscore in 2013) and it does provide real data from organic search so it is worth looking at.

Despite Google’s dominance, Bing and Yahoo (which uses Bing search for its results) still get significant traffic. Enough so that it can provide real and useful keyword data, particularly for terms that have enough volume to be worth targeting.

Considering that Bing still has millions of users, if a keyword doesn’t get enough data to show up in Bing’s data, is it even worth targeting? To use the Bing Keyword tool, sign up for a Bing Webmaster Tools account.

BAI was intended as a tool to help people that want to advertise on Bing’s network, but it is also a good keyword research tool for SEO’s. I like that this tool uses Excel, since Excel is something that pretty much everyone knows how to use. Some useful information includes monthly traffic, demographics data, and other useful information.

3. Nerdy Datahttp://www.nerdydata.com
Nerdy Data is a new search engine that launched late in 2013. The keyword search feature allows you to compare search volumes visually.

Online Keyword Tools (8-35)

1. SEM Rushhttp://www.semrush.com
SEM Rush is a competitor research tool that provides your competitors keywords and where they are ranking. The free version of the tool provides just a few keywords, but the paid version provides a lot more. Simply enter your competitor’s website (or your own) to see a list of keywords they are ranking for.2. Grep Wordshttp://grepwords.com
Cost: Plans starting at $15 / month

Grepwords has a keyword query builder that allows you to exclude terms, specify starting words, filter by CPC cost, filter by search volumes, and other useful features so you can quickly find the keywords you want. Not only does it give you access to a lot of keywords, but it also allows you to use filters to narrow it down to what you want to see:

5. Wordtrackerhttps://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
The Wordtracker keyword tool is free but requires you to create an account. You can start with one keyword and then drill deeper to get more keywords.

6. Merge Words http://mergewords.com
Merge Words are simple tools that creates combinations out of words or phrases that you enter into the boxes. This can be a convenient tool if you have some words in mind to start with.

10. Wordstream Keyword Toolhttp://www.wordstream.com/keywords
Wordstream has a few keyword tools that allow you to access their database of over a trillion keywords. You are allowed a limited number of free searches to try out the tool. Keyword data is aggregated from internet service providers, browser tools and search engines and then statistically analyzed, so Wordstream maintains their own database.

11. Keyword Eyehttp://www.keywordeye.com
Keyword Eye allows you to analyze on site content, monitor competitors, and simplifies keyword research. One cool feature is that it shows the keywords visually, similar to tag clouds.

13. Majestic SEO Keyword Checkerhttp://www.majesticseo.com/reports/keyword-checker
Majestic SEO has its own keyword checker that they say has never relied on Google’s data. This tool will show you how many times the keyword phrase appeared in their own index.

14. Wordpothttp://www.wordpot.com
Wordpot is a keyword tool that maintains its own keyword database. The data is compiled from various search engines. The database has not been updated since 2011 though but can be a good tool to use for evergreen keywords.

Positionly is an all in one SEO suite that is designed for the non-technical website user and includes a keyword research tool.

18. Term Explorerhttp://termexplorer.com
Term Explorer can give you up to a thousand keywords with exact match search volumes and also shows you if exact match domains are available for purchase. Free trial version is limited to 5 keyword searches per day. The paid version will allow you to do more than 5 searches a day and get more than 1,000 keywords per search. You can also download results as csv or pdf.

19. Colibri.iohttp://colibri.io
An SEO suite with a keyword research tool set launched in February 2014. The updated Colibri tool can crawl your website for keyword ideas and also compare you to your competitors.

20. Wordzehttp://www.wordze.com
A paid tool that may not be working any more. Paypal certificate is expired.

Jaaxy has been around since around 2011 and according to the Jaaxy blog, it gets its search volume by analyzing data from all search engines and using their algorithm to determine volume numbers that are closer to the actual volumes. It also has some competitive analysis features and a brainstorming tool to come upwith new ideas.

SE Cockpit by Swiss Made Marketing generates tons of phrases in a short amount of time from just one keyword entry. Data is gathered from Google related searches, Adwords, and Google Suggestions. Other data provided includes estimated Adsense earnings, competitor Adwords data and traffic volume estimates.

Seed Keywords is a unique tool that allows you to leverage friends or your own audience to come up with keyword ideas. Simply come up with a question or query, send the URL to your list, and watch your keyword list grow as they add keywords to the list. A great way to brainstorm with a group of people and come up with phrases that people will naturally search for.

Keyword Canine is a tool that provides competitive analysis with each keyword. Phrases that are easier to rank for are marked with a green color and difficult phrase are red, enabling you to target low competition, high volume phrases. Can also analyze competitor backlinks and has other features. They have a site boost feature as well with which they promote your content for you, although it is not clear how that feature works.

Keyword Revealer has a free version that allows 3 keyword searches per day and a paid version that starts at around $10/month. Asides from revealing lots of long tail keywords, this tool calculates keyword difficulty score and locates keywords that are easy to rank for.

The Last Keyword Tool has many useful features, including the ability to import and export your own keywords, ability to evaluate international markets, keyword search volume, and create your own custom columns and filters. They are also working on a trending feature.

This free tool displays search volume and CPC cost as well as a competition rating for both PPC and SEO. It also displays Google trends chart along with sites currently ranking for the term along with social counts and other useful data.

SERPWoo is a rank tracker and reputation management tool that includes a keyword research tool called the Keyword Finder. The Keyword Finder identifies the top 10 competitors ranking for your keyword phrase and extracts other long tail keywords from the pages that are currently ranking. The video on their landing page was created in February 2015 and explains some of the features.

Keyword Suggestion Tools (36-51)

When people start typing something into a search engine, it suggest possible phrases that they might be looking for. The tools in this list leverage the power of keyword suggestions.

1. Ubersuggesthttp://ubersuggest.org
You can also go to Ubersuggest and use their free tool to save some time, although Google keyword suggestion is a good tool for digging a little deeper and finding more keywords.2. Google Keyword Suggestion
When you are typing in the Google search box, it suggests keywords for you. Even when Google Keyword Tool was still providing a lot of data, I was still using Google keyword suggestions to generate content ideas because it provided way more keywords than the keyword tool.

I usually start with a base keyword and just start typing. Then follow up with each letter in the alphabet. You get the idea…

Amazon keyword suggestion tool. Although this tool was designed to come up with niche ideas for Kindle books, it can also be used for commercial keyword research for some niches.

7. Soolvehttp://soovle.com
This tool uses keyword suggestions from several places, including Wikipedia, the major search engines, and Answers.com.

8. Keywordsuggest.orghttp://keywordsuggest.org
This tool allows you to search for a keyword and provides a few keyword ideas. Click on each new idea to expand the branch to reveal even more ideas.

9. Keyword Tool Dominatorhttp://www.keywordtooldominator.com
This tool uses auto suggest from Google, eBay, Bing, Amazon and Google Products. You can then download the results.

10. KeywordTool.iohttp://keywordtool.io
This tool is new for 2014 and provides up to 750 keyword suggestions from Google for free. You can also select from Google search engines from different countries. Additionally, you can search from YouTube, Bing and the App Store as well as export data.

11. SG Serpstathttp://sg.serpstat.com
SG Serpstat is a new free keyword suggestion tool that provides questions from keywords, which can be used for content ideas. Another nice feature is that related keywords are listed on the left side that you can click on for more specific keyword phrases. You can also export the data, although you will be required to create an account.

12. Keyword Shitterhttp://keywordshitter.com
This keyword tool generates hundreds of keyword suggestions very quickly. You can then copy and paste them into a document or wherever else you want.

13. Answer the Publichttp://answerthepublic.com
In addition to the standard keyword phrases, Answer the Public also generates tons of questions from your keyword searches, which can be great for content marketers and bloggers. One unique feature is that it also displays the information both visually and alphabetically. You can also export the results.

14. Web Seerhttp://hint.fm/seer
Web Seer is a neat tool that allows you to compare two different search results visually. The thickness of the lines indicates how many results come up for each search term.

15. SERPs Ubersuggest Alternativehttps://serps.com/tools/keywords
SERPs Ubersuggest Alternative is another keyword suggestion tool. What I like about this tool is that it also reveals search volume and CPC cost, unlike most keyword suggestion tools.

Keyword researcher pro is a one time cost paid tool that uses Google auto-complete to generate long tail keyword ideas. You can even write content in it. This software comes with a free trial and there are several instructional videos, screenshots and tutorials on their page.

Other Desktop Keyword Tools (52-59)

1. SEO Gadget for Excel by Built Visiblehttp://builtvisible.com/introducing-seogadget-excel
SEOGadget for Excel is a tool that connects to Majestic SEO, Moz, aHrefs, Grepwords, and SEMRush API’s and sends the data to Excel. SEO Gadget recent rebranded to Built Visible in 2015, but the tool still works the same.

2. Market Samuraihttp://www.marketsamurai.com
Market Samurai was an old favorite desktop tool for many SEO’s when it came to keyword research. The new version of Market Samurai uses exact match search with Keyword Planner so it might not be an alternative but rather a tool that makes using Keyword Planner more convenient.

3. Traffic Travishttp://www.traffictravis.com
Traffic Travis is a free desktop SEO tool from Affilorama with a premium version that cost $97. It’s an older tool that gets data from Google, Yahoo and Bing.

4. Good Keywordshttp://www.goodkeywords.com
Good Keywords is a desktop software that finds keywords. The home page says that it uses Google Keyword Tool though, so not sure if it’s up to date.

6. Scrapebox Webpage Meta Scraperhttp://www.scrapebox.com/webpage-meta-scraper
Scrapebox has a built in feature to scrape title tags, meta descriptions and meta keywords from a list of website URL’s. You can easily grab keywords from your competitors with this tool. Take this data and run it through the Scrapebox Keyword Scraper for even more ideas.

7. Keyword Beehttp://keywordbee.com
Keyword Bee is a free tool that you can download. It can crawl website URL’s and suggest new keywords. Check out their 2 minute video on their site.

8. Places Scouthttps://www.placesscout.com
If you are doing local SEO, then check out Places Scout. It has a keyword generator that does keyword suggestions from the 3 major search engines, can import adwords data, and can even suggest exact match domain names with your keywords in it. This tool is targeted to finding keywords for local, so check it out if you are doing local SEO.

Old Data (60-61)

A good way to find evergreen keyword ideas is to look at old sites and old Google Analytics data.

1. Other Blogs and Websites
Another idea is to go to other blogs and websites in your niche and see what they are writing about, especially if you know that they do SEO on their sites. I usually find a few ideas that I overlooked through traditional keyword research when I look through other websites.

Old Made for Adsense (MFA) sites are particularly good sources and I have scoured these sites for ideas for my own sites, especially ones that were created before 2011. These were sites that were specifically made to get Adsense revenue by targeting keywords.

Older MFA sites had the keywords blatantly displayed in the navigation links and as page titles. Sometimes you will have to look further than the first couple of pages in Google to find these sites as many are no longer ranking well in Google. You can also use Bing instead to pull up these sites more easily in searches.

2. Old Analytics Data
If you have older websites that have been around for awhile, take a look at older Analytics data before when Google started to conceal data with encrypted search. This can be a good way to find keywords related to evergreen topics.

You can also use Google Trends to see if searches for those keyword phrases are declining, increasing, or remaining steady.

Competitive Analysis Tools (62-67)

Some competitive analysis tools can be used to obtain keyword intel from your competition.

1. Keyword Spyhttp://www.keywordspy.com
Keyword Spy is a tool that you can use to do keyword research or to see a competitor’s free and paid keywords. The free version will only show limited data and paid plans start at about $90 per month.

2. Spy Fuhttp://www.spyfu.com
Spu Fu is another competitive research tool that shows keyword ideas as well as competitor keywords. The free version is limited – upgrading to a paid version will reveal more data.

4. Screaming Frog SEO Spiderhttp://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider
The Screaming Frog SEO spider can crawl websites and see what keywords are being used in the title tag and meta fields. Although this tool was meant to identify technical issues on your own site, it can also be used for competitive keyword research.

5. Tag Crowdhttp://tagcrowd.com
Tag Crowd is a nice tool to visually see the most important keywords used on a web page – a convenient tool for quickly analyzing on page SEO of competitors. You can copy and paste keywords into the text box or simply select the Web Page URL field and enter the URL there. You can also save your tag cloud as a PDF or print it out.

Browser Add-ons and Plugins (68-69)

1. Wordtracker Scouthttp://www.wordtracker.com/scout
Wordtracker Scout is a Google Chrome plugin that shows on page keywords in a visual cloud. It also accesses Wordtracker’s large keyword database to display other keyword insights.

2. KGenhttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/kgen
This Firefox add-on allows you to see what keywords are used frequently on a web page. Click “View – Sidebar – Kgen” after it is installed to open the interface. Although it has been updated recently, some people say this plugin is no longer working.

Analytics Tools (70-75)

1. HitTailhttp://www.hittail.com
HitTail is an Analytics software that is designed to show long tail searches that users have used to find your site in real time. Another great feature of HitTail is that it also suggests keyword topics that you should write about based on what keywords are currently bringing you traffic.

Compete collects its own data from about 2 million Internet users (roughly 1% of the US population) and uses statistical analysis to estimate activity on the top 1 million websites on the web. With Compete Pro, you can see what keywords your competitors are targeting as well as projected keyword volumes.

Ginzametrics a competitive analysis tool that allows you to compare your site to your competitors and see how you compare for keyword rankings. It’s the only platform to update keyword ranking data daily. Uses Moz data.

Concentrate connects with whatever analytics tool you are using, including Google Anaytics, Hitwise, Comscore, Trellian and Compete and extracts long tail keywords from your analytics data. This allows you to target long tail keywords more effectively.

Other Search Tools (76-86)

1. Latent Semantic Analysis Toolhttp://lsa.colorado.edu
This tool finds the relationship between keywords from data from millions of documents. I won’t pretend to even begin to understand what all the fields in this tool do, but play around with the searches and you will find some keywords.

2. Ultimate Keyword Hunterhttp://ultimatekeywordhunter.com
I noticed early in 2015 that LSI Keywords had shut down, so when searching for a replacement, I found Ultimate Keyword Hunter. This tool can be downloaded for free and you can enter URL’s of content you want to analyze and even write content in it while it matches your content up to LSI keywords and phrases.

3. Niche Laboratoryhttp://www.nichelaboratory.com
Niche Laboratory is a great free keyword tool that also has the option of generating keyword ideas based on location and also adult keywords. The completed search gives a good bit of data including LSI keywords, keyword tag cloud, top websites ranking for your search term, title tags and meta descriptions from top sites, and related images and forums.

4. Yahoo Answers and Forumshttp://answers.yahoo.com
A good place to look for natural keyword phrases that people are using is Yahoo answers and similar sites. Forums are another place where you can look for these patterns.

5. Thesaurus http://thesaurus.com
An online thesaurus can be used to find related synonyms that you haven’t thought of, which can be used to form new keyword phrases and combinations.

7. BoostSuitehttp://www.boostsuite.com
BoostSuite has a keyword analysis tool, but not a keyword iteration tool, so it doesn’t suggest alternatives to keywords you’ve entered. After you add your keywords to BoostSuite, it will analyze them and rank them based on opportunity (low competition & med-high monthly search volume) and number of conversions from organic search visitors for each. It will then help you assign these high-opportunity keywords to your new and existing content to optimize it.

Merchant Words is a search tool that provides Amazon keyword search data, including search volume. It currently uses only US data which is updated monthly and gets its info by crawling Amazon. This could be a useful tool for e-commerce sites and people selling information products.

Want to add a keyword tool to your own website? Already Coded has created an archive of php keyword tools that you can purchase and add to your own site. Some tools include long tail keyword research tool, Ebay keyword tool, Amazon tool and more. These tools are coded in php and range from $15-$100 each.

Tellagence Discover is an enterprise level tool that can gather data from Twitter and analyzes the language to find the top themes. Although the cost is expensive, this tool can surface keywords that are being used by your target customers and allow you to write in the language that they are using on social media.

Other Ideas (87-98)

Here are a few other ideas for generating keywords.

1. Survey and Engage with Your Audience
Another overlooked opportunity for getting real keywords is to simply survey your audience. Ask them open ended questions and see how they reply. Look for patterns in the language used.

If you ask enough people, then you might start to see patterns in the words that they use. As Google continues moving towards better serving conversational search, this can be a good way to come up for keywords that might not show up in other tools.

2. Internal Site Search
Using internal site search can also be a good method of keyword analysis if your site has a lot of traffic, as this data is information that you can access. You can see what keywords and phrases that people are searching for on your site. This data can also be useful in coming up with new content ideas.

3. Analyze Traffic to URL’s
If you are creating a ton of content or have a large site, then analyzing traffic to website URL’s can be highly beneficial. Basically, you look at the URL’s that are getting the most search traffic and then take any keywords from those pages and plug them into your keyword tool of choice. From there, you can analyze keyword opportunities and make educated estimates on volume.

4. Use Filters
For advanced Analytics users, you can use filters to get back some keyword not provided data. EConsultancy wrote a good article about how to do this.

5. Hashtags.orghttp://www.hashtags.org
The free version won’t show you much, but with a paid account at Hashtags.org, you can view data for hashtag searches on Twitter.

6. Hashtagify.mehttp://hashtagify.me
You can enter a hashtag to see related hash tags on Twitter. The free version only provides a few, but the $5/month paid version provides up to 50.

7. nTopichttp://www.ntopic.org/tools.php
nTopic is a tool that suggest keywords for the articles that you write to increase relevancy. A study that they showcased on their site shows how adding relevant keywords can increase search traffic.

8. Brainstorming Sessions
A brainstorming session is a great way to come up with some good keyword ideas. Tools don’t always show you related keywords. To get even more ideas, get a team together and create a database of keyword ideas that all team members can contribute to.

9. Print sources
Industry magazines, newsletters and direct mail are another possible source for ideas. Look through these to find words and phrases that you might have missed.

10. Social monitoring and listening tools
Social monitoring tools like mention.com can provide some new ideas. Sometimes, for example, people will reword the default wording of your tweets and pins or add their own hash tags.

11. Conference presentations / Slideshare
Watching conference presentations or viewing Slideshare Powerpoints can be a good way to find more phrases to target.

12. News Feeds and Aggregators / Industry Bookmarking sites
Check out news feeds for your industry and also aggregators and bookmarking sites like Scoop.it. Headlines can be good inspiration and a source for keywords, especially if you see the same terms repeated in various articles.

What did you think?

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About Brian Lang

I've been making a living online since 2002, mostly through e-commerce sites and content sites with advertising. Through the years, I have also learned a lot about other types of businesses and helped other people with their business problems.

Comments

Thats an impressive list! thanks for putting it together. hittail is an interesting one which is used years ago. I assume they keep on collecting keywords and now must have a huge database which is very useful, post [not provided]

Great amount of information you got posted here. This is a valuable resource of information for anyone looking to do keyword research. Have used several of the applications and tools provided on this list. Making use of any of these are of a great benefit.

Nice list you have put together here, a number of tools in there I’ve never even heard of, never mind used before!

Just got a little bit to add to your Market Samurai description which your readers may find useful though…

For a while now the software has been integrated with Majestic SEO which provides really good competition analysis data. I bought it years and years ago and still use it at least a couple of times a week purely for the competition analysis data it provides on the scraped keywords it generates.

Hi Jamie. I heard that they used Majestic at one point, but the latest post on their blog says they switched to Google Planner. So who knows – they haven’t updated their blog in 6 months. I think I’ll just leave it for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Long days I am using Google Adword keyword tool it shows amazing related keywords before I don’t heard these kind of tool after landing into your site I got some keyword research tool. Thanks for sharing…..

Wow Brian, the resource to end all resources on keyword research.
I need to try a few of them out.
I am doing ok with Keywordplanner, but perhaps there are better tools!
Which is your favourite? for simple keyword research with a free tool

Hi Ashley. I actually use Keyword Planner, although I do want to look into Jaxxy and Boostsuite which have free versions or free trials and also offer keyword volume info. There are still quite a few tools on here that I need to play around with.

Hi Brian, thanks for adding the price for paid tools. Could you make one more change. Keyword Revealer is now offering only three keywords searches per day for free. People have started loving it and now its time for Keyword Revealer to monetize it.

Quite a bunch of useful stuffs you’ve listed here. I recently came across a keyword suggestion tool that comes with an additional feature of generating interrogative questions http://sg.serpstat.com/ – and its free! Have you tried it?

What a fantastic list – wow! I just started to sell on Amazon and am looking for a tool that will tell me how many searches are done each month/year for a particular product. I was told there is a tool called “Merchant Words” that will do this. Do you know of any others? Thanks very much and thanks for a great website here.

Hi Greg,
You might also want to check out Freshkey, which is an Amazon keyword suggestion tool. Also, feel free to search through the post for “Amazon” for a few other keyword suggestion tools that include Amazon.

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